Numer 26 January 1993

orsum
agmcat

Ze Morse Magazine
 01191011

Maurice...
MORSUM MAGNIFICAT was first published in Holland, in
W...
1983, by the late Rinus
llellemons PAOBFN. Now published in Britain, it aims to provide international
coverage of all aspects of Morse telegraphy, past present and future. MORSUM
MAGNIFICAT is for all Morse entlutsthrtr, amateur
or professional, active or
retired. It brings together material which would otherwise be lost
to posterity,
providing an invaluable source of interest, reference and record relating to the
traditions and practice of Morse.

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS: (Four Issues. 19931994):

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quote your
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orders, etc., unless payable in sterling. Overseas chequesand drafts must be money
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B@[QE
EDITORIAL AND SUBSCRIPTION OFFICES:
Morsurn Magnicat, 9 Wetherby Close, Broadstone, Dorset BHl8
818, England.
Telephone/FAX: Broadstone (0202) 658474; Intemational +44 202 658474
EDITOR Geoff Arnold G3GSR
CONSULTANT EDITOR Tony Smith G4FAI, l Tash Place,
London N ll IPA. England. Tel: 081-368 4588
G C Arnold Partners 1993 ISSN 09536426
Printed by Henfordshire Display Company, Ware, Hens.

ON OUR FRONT COVER

A restored I.H. Bunnell 20 ohm sounder. circa 1871.
Restoration and photograph by Phillip Cleveland WT6P
 Comment Contents
OUR CHRISTMAS COMPETITION, 2 News
DID announced in MM25 (p.23), really cause you
such problems? We didnt expect to be inun-
5 Baggage Telegraphers
5 STOP PRESS USCG to
dated with entries, but we did expect some valiant Drop MF CW
(and valid) attempts. So far weve not had a single 6 A Code-free Licence?
one that complies in all respects with the simple
rules laid down. You've got a couple of months left 8 VA or SK?
to get your entries in, so what about it? 9 Commercial CW at KFS
In order to remove the confusion (not least my 12 Who Buzzed First?
own!) over the coverdates which we put on MM, 17 MM Binders
as from this issue the date shown will be the month
in which the magazine is published. Incidentally, 18 Indo-China Memories
it gets over the problem of producing a Christmas 20 MM Back Issues &
issue at the end of January! in the Next Issue
Following the introduction of the Single Euro- 20 Radio Bygone:
pean Market on 1 January 1993, the sale and pur- 21 Feather-Touch Key
chase of goods between member countries is subject
23 Readers ADs
to VAT. For sales by post, etc., to individuals and
small companies who are not VAT-registered, the 24 Showcase
seller must charge VAT on the same basis as if the 26 Info Please!
customer was in his own country. Luckily, maga- 27 On Learning Morse
zines and books are presently zero-rated in the UK,
30 Bookshelf
although there are continued rumblings about the
possibility of a change in this anangementHowever, 32 Aerials for Subs 3
magazine binders, like most other goods, are subject 34 Earthquake Memories
to VAT at 17/2 per cent. This has the unfortunate 36 Club Prole 7: HCC
effect of adding almost a Pound to prices for MM
37 Your Letters
binders going to EC-member countries other than the
UK (see p.17). And they tell us that the Single Euro-
pean Market is intended to encourage trade...
Had we known in advance, we would have fore- dvertisement
warned ourEuropean customers and encouragedthem
to order their binders early. Unfortunately, details of
Imfex
how to operate the new rules were not published until
after January had begun! (
(:0 AD?" 20 FISTS CW Club
31 G4ZPY Keys
" /G365R 35 G-QRP Club
,_/
W6
 Maw;
Dorset Morse Festival Weekend
MORSE ENTHUSIASTS old and new
will be welcome at the rst Dorset
Morse Festival Weekend, to be held at
Clayesmore School, Iweme Minster, on
the A350 between Blandford and
Shaftesbury, on Saturday and Sunday,
March 27/28.
There will be trade stands (including
one manned by your favourite Morse
magazinei), RSGB Morse tests and lec-
tures, and you will also have the chance
to meet other CW enthusiasts!
The Morse Festival, hosted by the
school radio society GORSC, runs from
10am on the Saturday to midday on the
Sunday, so you can go for the day or stay
for the weekend. Overnight accommoda-
tion and food will be available at the school,
at an inclusive reasonable price.
Full details are included in the
Morse Festival Information Pack, avail-
able by sending an A4 stamped addressed
envelope to DorsetMorse Festival Week-
end, ClayesmoreSchool,Iweme Minster,
Blandford,Dorset DTll 8PH.
Future HF Band Planning
AT THE IARU Region 2 Conference held
in Curacao from August 31 to September
4, 1992, Hans Berg DJ6TJ, Chairman,
IARU Region 1 HF Committee, presented
proposals for a world-wide HF band plan
which he hoped could be agreed by all
three IARU Regions.
This would divide the amateur bands
into sections according to bandwidth of
2
signal and not by mode as at present, with
each section allocated a xed percentage
of each band. Signals up to 0.5kHz wide
would be allocated 20 per cent of a band;
up to 1.5kHz 25 per cent; and more than
1.5kHz 55 per cent.
This proposal had previously been
drawn to the attention of all European
CW Association member-clubs by
AGCW-DL (GermanCW ActivityGroup)
which pointed out that, if implemented,
the proposal would result in smaller
sections of each band being specically
available for amateur CW than at presenL
It is understood that the Region 2
Conference took no action in response to
these proposals, and Hans Berg DJ6TJ
has advised MM that he does not
propose to pursue the matter at the Region
1 Conference in
September 1993.
(Information from John Allaway
G3FKM, Secretary, IARU Region I.
and
Hans Berg DJ6TJ, Chairman, IARU
Region 1 HF Committee.)
Nottingham Morse Seminar
PLANNING CONTINUES for the 1993
Morse Seminar to be held at Sherwood
Community Centre, Manseld Road,
Nottingham on Saturday May 15. There
will be two l-hour presentations, one in
the morning and one in the afternoon.
The aftemoon talk, entitled Early Morse,
will be given by Tony Smith G4FAI,
Consultant Editor of Morsum Magnicat.
Additionally, there will be a series
of mini-talks of about 20 minutes on a
W6
variety of Morse related subjects, with
topics of interest for the beginner and the
more procient
There will be displays of Morse keys
and equipment, and of very early radio
equipment. There will also be a Bring
and Show' table where visitors can bring
one or two items of interest to show
to others, or to nd out what they are!
QRP kits by lake Electronics will be
available, and there will be a FlSTS
CW Club table.
Amongst variousactivities, a selection
of currently available keys will be avail-
able to try out; various computer CW
programs will show how good your Morse
really is and will test your speed. Visitors
are invited to bring their own keys and
to use the Nottingham Club call of
G6CW on-the-air.
For those requiring it, a prearranged
mini-bus service can be provided to and
from Nottingham Midland Station. Light
refreshments will be available together
with the opportunity to chat about Morse
with like-minded enthusiasts, and there
will be a talk-in station on S22.
The organiser, Ron Wilson G4NZU,
will welcome further ideas and sugges-
tions. There is already a programme await-
ing nalisation, but suggestions (and/or
volunteers!) for additional talks or
activities to expand the format of the
seminar will be particularly welcome.
Please write or telephone Ron at
9 Greythorn Drive, West Bridgford,
Nottingham N62 766. Tel: (0602)
231900 if you can help. The full pro-
gramme for this enjoyable and interesting
event will be published in the next issue
of MM, but make a note of the date in
your diaries now!
W6
CWlncreaslng!
A GREAT DEAL OF TIME and effort
went into adjudicating this years 43
events. Interestingly, the number of UK
entrants in CW contests is increasing
whilst SSB contests are struggling.
(Comment on HF contests in the
Annual Report of the Radio Society of
Great Britain, 19911992.)
New Products
SANELLI TECHNOLOGY has recently
introduced two new Morse products. One
is a code practice oscillator, the OSC100,
for individual or group practice sessions.
This is claimed to output an extremely
pure CW tone to an external speaker. It
features separate volume and tone con-
trols, jacks for external 9-volt adapter,
key, and speaker, and will also operate
from an internal 9-volt battery. Price is
US$39.95 plus $5.00 shipping/handling
USA or $12.00 non-USA.
The second product is LEARN CODE
PROGRAMm with RIXTIX ANALYZ-
ERTM which allows an IBM-compatible
computer to display code sent by hand
using the shift key. It also sends random
characters at speeds from 1 to 35 wpm
overall speed and independent 135 wpm
character speed, with adjustable dah
length. The RIXTlX ANALYZERTM ana-
lyses dah lengths, time between elements,
and time betweencharacters, and then dis-
plays character and overall speed. It also
imitates the operator at the other end to
show if your hand-keyed code is readable.
Price is US$9.95 plus s/h USA $4.00 or
$9.00 non-USA. Specify 3.5in or 5.25in.
For further details contact Sanelli
Technology, PO Box 416, Kiowa Co
80117-0416, USA. Tel: (303) 621-2534.
3
 Morse Programs Now Avallable to All
A NUMBER OF MM readers have now
obtained copies of Gary Bolds Morse
programs as described and offered in
MM25, p.6. These programs continue to
be available free of charge and the offer is
now extended to non-readers of MM, to
anyone who wishes to learn Morse code
or improve on their existing performance.
Please tell your friends with IBM compat-
ible computers about this offer.
The program for absolute beginners,
TEACH, is based on the innovative com-
puterised teaching system described by
WA9VRU in QST, May 1977, which, in
Gary Bolds view, combines two beauti-
ful, simple, and obvious ideas. One is the
introduction of characters in postponed
discrimination order, and the other is that
the computer should adapt to the human.
Postponed discrimination order
means the introductionof the longest char-
acters rst, as opposed to the more usual
start with E, I, T, etc., with the idea of re-
inforcing the need to listen to the whole
character before deciding what it is. In
plain text the learner gets little chance to
practice the more uncommon letters, but
with postponed discrimination by the
time E is reached the Q3, 23, Xs, etc., will
have been heard so often that they will
not cause the usual problems!
Gary says that WA9VRUs is the only
adaptivecode teaching system he has seen
(he would like to know of others if they
exist). Adaptive here means adjusting
the teaching to match the learning ability
of the student.
His TEACH version of this system
sends an audible character at about 12
wpm and waits for a response. If you
know what it is you press the appropriate
4 M426
key on the keyboard. If you dont know,
and do nothing, the program waits a
reasonable time, prints the letter on the
screen, and sends it again.
If the wrong key is pressed the charac
ter is sent again without comment. The
program starts with Qs and goes on to
Ys, introducing more as the learner begins
to recognise the characters correctly. It
continuously averagespast response times
and waits for a response for twice as long
as this average.
It keeps track of the students error
rate on each character and the average
error over all characters in use, and all
these error rates have to be acceptably
low before a new character is introduced.
Characters are sent with a non-uniform
random probability, i.e., difcult charac-
ters, as assessed by the individuals
response rate, are sent with a higher
probability than those more easily recog-
nised. At the end of a session the program
provides information on how the student
is progressing.
All seven programs described in
MM25, including TEACH, can be ob-
tained free of charge by sending a
formatted 3.5in disk (DD or HD), together
with a stamped addressed envelope for
its return, to Tony Smith, 1 Tash Place,
London,N11 IPA.
Well Done Kelthl
THE FIRST EVER UK Class A Novice,
has now become the rst UK Novice to
receive the G-QRP Clubs Class A CW
Novice Award.
He is 12-year-old Keith Goodwin
2MOACT, who used 3 watts to make his
rst 50 CW contacts to qualify for the
award. These contacts include seven with
USA/Canada, two with Indonesia, and in-
volve twelve separate countries in all.
His father Stuart GMOCAG, reports
that Keith is getting a great thrill from the
hobby and that many of his contacts have
helped him relate to his school geography
and French lessons.
Dave Gosling GONEZ, the G-QRP
Novice Services Manager, reports that
there are a number of other Club
Novices also achieving high standards of
operating ability and asks all CW opera-
tors to look out for and encourage Novices
when they hear them.
Novice callsigns have the prex 2
followed by the letter E, W, M, J, U,
Baggage Telegraphers
by Don deNeuf WA1$PM (SK)
In the early days of railroading in the West the
likelihood of derailments, breakdowns, Indi-
an interference, and the like resulted in each
train carrying a telegrapher as a member of the
crew.
He was the liaison between the conductor
of the train and the dispatchers, transmitting
notication of delays, calls for assistance, etc.,
when required. Frequently he doubled as the
baggage man.
He carried with him a portable key and
somder combination with sufcient exible
wire to reach the top of the telegraph poles and
its Morse lines which always ran alongside the
tracks. It was an inviolable order that no train
could leave a terminal without a telegrapher.
The telephone had not yet come into
use. Men with
telegraphic
s k i l l s
were not
plentiful.
In some
or I designating their regional loca-
tions. 2MOACT, for example, is located
in Scotland.
The G-QRP Clubs CW Novice
Award is intended to encourage newcomo
ers to CW operating. It is open to any
amateur (including non-club members)
who, during the rst twelve months of
holding a licence, contacts 50 different
stations while using CW.
The Class A award is for contacts
using up to 5 watts output and for the
Class 8 award any power may be used.
Further details are available from
Gus Taylor G8PG, 37 Pickerill Road,
Greasby, Merseyside, 1119 3ND.
instances trains were held for several hours
tmtil one could be fotmd. On some lines the
train telegrapher's Morse sets were very small
pocket sized
- often in a carrying case. MM
STOP PRESS!
US Coast Guard Ceasing All CW
United States Notices to Mariners,
dated 5 January 1993, announce as
follows:
Effective 1 August 1993, all United
States Coast Guard communications
stations and cutters will discontinue
watchkeeping on the distress fre-
quency 500kHz, and will cease all
Morse code services in the medium
frequency radio telegraphy band.
Information from Bruce Morris
GW4XXF. Bruce will be making
every eort to obtain recordings of
the last CW transmissionsfrom these
stations to add to his historic compila-
tion cassette of farewell signals
500kHz - the End is Nighl, reported
in MM18 p.12.
 HE INTERNATIONAL Amateur quirement for operation below 30MHz.
Radio Union Region 1
High The AdministrativeCouncil reviewed the
Frequency Committee, at its meet- ITU Radio Regulations which require
ing in Vienna in April 1992, discussed that amateurs possess a knowledge of
whether, from the viewpoint, interest and Morsecode to operate below 30MHz,and
future of the amateur radio service, the its previous actions relating to this subject.
IARU and its membersocieties would want It was determined that no further action is
to maintain the poli- needed at this time.
cy of supporting the However, that is
Morse code exam-
ination as essential A Code-free Licence? not the end of the
matter. MM has
for obtaining an been advised by
amateur licence for by Tony Smith G4FAI
Hans Berg DJ6TJ,
the bands below Chairman of IARU
30MH2. The fol- Region 1 HF Com-
lowing recommendations were, therefore, mittee, that the whole matter has to be
made to the Region 1 Executive Council: reconsidered by the next Region 1
1.1 That IARU Region 1 societies should Conference which will be held in
investigate the future use of Morse code Belgium, 19-25 September 1993.
as far as licensing examination require-
ments for access to the HF bands are R863 Consultation Exercise
concemed. While the above discussionshave been
1.2 That the IARU Administrative taking place at international level, the
Council be asked to investigate the Radio Society of Great Britains HF
situation world-wide. Committee has also been considering
At its meeting in Budapest, 13 May the question of access to the HF amateur
1992, the Region 1 Executive Committee bands without the need for a Morse code
minuted that The question of the Morse qualication.
code examination was discussed and it While recognising that the inter-
was agreed that the EC would forward national regulations at present require
a request to the Secretary of the Intema- radio amateurs operating below 30MHz
tional Amateur Radio Union for this mat- to demonstrate their prociency at send-
ter to be placed on the agenda of the next ing and receiving Morse code, though the
AdministrativeCouncil (AC) meeting'. speed and nature of any test is not
specied, the HF Committee has invited
Further Consideration in September input from any UK amateur or SWL on
The draft minutes of the AC meeting whether they are for or against the idea of
held at Curacao on 57 September 1992, a code-free HF licence.
read as follows: Views, opinions and comments from
13.1) Morse code examination re- both members and non-members of the

MMG
Society are welcome and should be sent to
the RSGB not later than 8 March 1993
(see below for address).
Time to Re-examine Pros and Cons
MM asked Martin Athenon G3ZAY,
RSGB HF Manager, if the HF Commit-
tees request for input from amateur
operators and SWLs was specically
related to the proposed consideration of
Morse examination requirements at the
forthcoming IARU Region 1 Conference
mentioned by DJ6TJ above.
GSZAY replied as follows: I can
conrm that the current discussions/
consultations are not specically related
to the forthcoming Region 1 Conference
although they will obviously be useful in
deciding what our position should be on
the papers that will be submitted by
others (RSGB is not submitting any on
this subject).
The topic has been raised by
numerous correspondents over the last
few years and was aired at the recent
RSGB strategy conference where it was
decided that the time had come to re-
examine the pros and cons.
The request for comment is not
restricted to RSGB members. If we get a
large response it might be worth looking
for any divergence of views between
members and non-members, and this in
turn might inuence our nal position if
the arguments seem closely balanced.
Rules Can be Changed
Even though there is at present an
international requirement for a Morse
test for HF operation, it must be recog-
nised that formal support by the IARU
and its member societies for the abolition
MM26
of the test could lead to proposals being
put, via national administrations, to the
ITU for the regulations to be changed.
If the RSGB decides to support a no-
code HF licence it could be a persuasive
inuence in IARU discussions on such
a proposal. It is most important, therefore,
if UK CW operators or SWLs have any
comments to make they should write
now while they have an opportunity to
inuence RSGB policy on this matter.
Write Now!
Member or non-member, write to the
RSGB to express your views before it
is too late! Write to The HF Committee,
c/o RSGB HQ, Lambda House,
Cranborne Road, Potters Bar, Herts
EN6 3JE, marking your envelope
Code Free Licence in the bottom left-
hand corner, not later than 8 March
1993. Tell them if you are for or against
the idea of a code-free HF licence (and
why!), and indicateif you are a member or
non-member of the Society. If you wait
till March 8 you may forget to write. Why
not do it now while you have it in mind!
(Information from IARU Region 1
News; John Allaway G3FKM, Secretary,
IARU Region I; Hans Berg 0167"],
Chairman, IARU Region 1 HF Commit
tee; Radio Communication,journal of the
RSGB; and Martin Atherton G3ZAY,
RSGB HF Manager.)
Views noted by MM recently against a
code-free licence include:
'The next question could be "do you
want an RAE-free licence?" ';
'A code-free licence would lead to a
break-down of band plans and loss of
CWfrequencies' ;
'Construction of simple QRP CW
7
 equipment is one of the last bastions of
amateur home-construction and a code-
free licence could eventually lead to the
end of that activity ,'
Simple CW equipment also provides
valuable facilities and encouragement
for Novices which should not be lost' ,'
The RSGB should not ignore the
interests of the large number of CW
operators who are still the second largest
group of radio amateurs' ,'
Morse may be old-fashioned in its
origins but there is a great deal of up-to-
date sophisticatedequipment availablefor
those who wish to use it, making CW a
modern effective communication medium;
CW meets the needs of the widest
possible range of amateurs from the
absolute beginner to the highly skilled
DXer far more than any other mode' ,'
Success in the CW test encourages
newcomers to the mode if the test is
abolished there will be little incentive
for anyone to learn Morse' ,'
CW is too valuable a mode to be lost
it is the easiest and
cheapest way to get
on the air, it provides the best DX in
poor conditions, it takes less bandwidth
than any other mode, it helps overcome
language differences, it is used for a
number of experimental and specialist
purposes it is in the interest of amateur
radio itself to support the retention of
the Morse test to help keep CW alive.
If the UK had a no-code licence by
bending the rules", as is hinted in the
R568 statement. reciprocal licensing
arrangements with other countries retain-
ing a Morse requirement could be lost.
Perhaps readers might like to make
some of these points to the R508 if they
agree with them of course! Ed.)
8 WEI/[26
Is it Vrc-Ac(k) or
Sugar-King?
by GeoffArnold 63683
Although its not as often used in amateur
Morse communications as it is (or was?)
in professional trafc handling, the signal
-
----- meaning End of Work is never-
theless widely known.
When I was training to become a sea-
going radio ofcer, we were taught that
- -
--- was W. This is how it appears
in many reference books on Morse proce-
dures, but in many others it is interpreted
as SK. The Morse signals for these alter-
native versions are of course exactly the
same, but I wonder why there are two
forms. Did one originate in a particular
telegraph service?
In similar vein, does anyone know
the origins of the two versions of the old
phonetic-spelling interpretation of the
letter A. Most references, including
army instruction books from the turn of
the century, say that it was Ack, but I
have found thata few quote Ac' instead.
Another question occurred to me re-
cently I apologise for the somewhat mor-
bid overtones. My query concerns the
phrase Silent Key, used in the amateur
fraternity when talking about an operator
who has passed away. Undoubtedlya most
aprxopriateand descriptivephrase, but was
it intentional, or mere coincidence, that
the abbreviation for Silent Key is SK.
After all, there can be no more nal End
of Work than death. MM
 OR THE LAST TWO YEARS ten transmitters on HF doubles on 22,
I have worked part-time for 16, 12, and 8MHz and single transmitters
KFS, a coastal telegraph on 4 and 6.
station (locatednear San Francisco. Ed. ). KFS is one of three commercial
I had long held a commercial stations still operating on the West Coast
licencebut hadnt ever had an opportimity KPH in Marin county and KOB in
to use it. Then saw an ad QST, called,
I in Arlington, Washington, used to be sister
and a week later was stations to KFS.
working atKFS. KOB was bought by
one of its operators
Its been educa-
tional, and Ive
Commercial CW at who set it up in his
back yard (must be
enjoyed it. Com-
mercial CW, con-
KFS some back yard!
trary to what I read Ed.) and is doing
by Rod Deakln NR7E quite well.
on bulletin boards,
still lives. There are
50 000 registered Tmic
vessels out there. 15 000 use satellite as There are several different message
their primary form of communication.The types: position reports, requests for sup-
rest use SITOR or CW. Foreign ships plies, etc. There are messages to the
ofcers are not paid as well as US ofcers, Coast Guard that are like ling a ight
so stay with CW to avoid the capital plan. We send weather reports to ships,
expense of satellite. handle medical emergency messages, and
Commercial CW is full duplex. If you general trafc.
dont know how the bands are organised We use three modes: satellite for telex
you wont be able to hear both sides of and FAX; SITOR, which is similar to
a conversation. AMTOR; and CW.
Commercial stations always use sepa-
Privately Owned rate receiver and transmittersites to allow
Station KFS has changed hands full duplex operation.
many times since it started around 1910.
Nowadays its privately owned, having Calling and Working Bands
been purchasedprimarily for the property, Initial contacts are always made in
but allowed to stay on the air because it the calling bands which are channelised
still makes money. in half-kHz steps. Typically KFS has
The original transmitter was spark, of ve receivers up. One is a scanner a
course, but there have been many changes Kenwood R5000.
in all the years since. The current receiv- After contact is established we use
ers are Watkins Johnson 718s that tune the working bands. A ship tells a shore
SkHz to 30MHz continuously. There are station where to listen when he QSYs.

W6 9
A switching system allows any operating
position to use any available antenna.
The shore station CQs continuously -
today using a computer. When an
operator hears a ship calling, he touches
his key to stop tlte CQ and call the ship.
The wheel also runs announcements
of trafc lists, weather broadcasts, etc.
Shipboard Operators
Ship operators were the shock of my
life. Some of their sts are so bad weve
had three operators copy the message,
compare notes, then ask the ship for con-
rmation. To a ships Radio Ofcer,
CW is work, not fun.
You can always tell whos a ham and
whos not. Many true RO types use
hand keys, even today. When a ship is
rolling, its hard to use a bug. A lot of side-
swipers are still in use. Speeds range from
5 wpm up, with probably no more than a
half percent going 30 wpm.
The trick is to copy a huge variation
in sending styles and do it for 8 hours
without going nuts. A hundred messages
makes a heavy shift: you normally run
about half that. Messages vary from 5 to
600 words (the longest Ive ever copied).
Moneys Worth
Sea Bells, callsign ELC7, hauls logs
from Longview,Washington,to China and
its operator had a reputation for being un-
copyable. Finding myself in Longview on
a trip, I decided to see what ships were in,
and there was the Sea Bells!
I went aboard and met her radio opera-
tor. Hes a super-nice guy and what he
showed me in his shack explained why
his st was so bad. He had a side-swiper
made with a pair of micro-switches and
10
a crazy mechanical arrangement built to
keep him from touching the 100 volts on
the keying line. Its feel was like a lead
brick sliding over a concrete slab!
At my suggestion, the KFS manage-
ment bought him a keyer and I sent it up
to him. His st improved a great deal
and management got their moneys worth
many times over in operator time saved
at KFS.
Alaska Disaster
A heavily loaded container ship in
the Gulf of Alaska broke in half about
eighteen months ago. All the ships com-
munication systems were out, but a crew
member had a battery-powered 50watt
CW rig which he managed to get on the
air to call for help.
Instances like this are why CW in the
maritime service will never die, though
it may cease to be the primary means of
communication. The US Coast Guard
clearly agrees. (But see page 5. Ed.)
Questions and Answers
The following is a selection from the
many questions answered by NR7E at the
conclusion of his talk:
Q. Would it be more costly to use teletype
rather than SITOR?
A. Data integrity isnt there. SITOR is
double-checked: for the number of zeros
and ones in each character and in groups
of three characters at 100 baud. Under
adverse conditions, it gets hits and retries
so much a good CW operator can
outrun it
Q. How do you know what trafc needs
to be sent?
A. The carousel has all the hard copy
outbound messages with callsigns, and
W6
different paper colours for each day. After
seven days without success you send the
message back to its originator. We trans-
mit a trafc list each hour. When a ship
checks in youre obligated to send his
trafc rst. Soon they will do away with
the carousel and just use a window on a
PC. Youll be able to pull the message up
on a screen and send it by hand if you
wish, or automatically.
Q. Why not always machine-send the
messages?
A. That takes all the fun out of it Work
a lot of packet?
Q. What is propagation like?
A. Its different from working DX on
the amateur bands. You never know the
location of a ship. So you just try dif-
ferent antennas and use the one that
works the best
Q. Why do you work stations world-wide?
A. Ships call us and we do whatever they
want. Cost is a factor. Sending a telex
directly to Seattle from China costs more
than sending it via KFS.
Q. If a new ship calls up, what happens?
A. We set him up as a new customer.
Q. You trust him to pay?
A. No, but four letters at the end of his
preamble tell us where to send the bill.
Q. How can he nd out what the
charges will be?
A. By sending QSJ? How much is this
message going to cost me? Its $2.43 per
minute on SITOR.
Q. Do ships specify what mode to use?
A. Yes, its the ships choice.
Q. Do you work Cuban ships?
A. Yes. But sometimes you dont get paid.
Q. Do you bring your own bug to the job?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Can you describe emergencies?
W6
A. The second week I was there, I copied
a message about an ofcer who had just
killed someone in a ght. The dead guy
was in a refrigerationcompartment. They
wanted to know whether they should bury
him at sea, head for shore, or keep the
body in refrigeration for the rest of the
trip.
I once got a message about a guy who
had become upset and tried to sabotage
his ship which was carrying naphtha. He
had wrecked one of the main generators.
They put him off the ship in Miami and
later repatriated him to Manila.
Ive copied messages at least six times
with people lost overboard.
One message was from the captain of
a Greek ship waitingat a lock on the Pan-
ama Canal. The message was to a young
mans wife, telling her he was dead, prob-
ably murdered. His body had been found
oating in a river.
Q. Is there much demand for shipboard
operators today?
A. Yes.
Q. Why?
A. The unions said satellites would mean
the end of radio operators, so many opera-
tors retired early or found other work. The
career is questionable;no one knows how
long the need for CW operators will last.
Also, responsibilities have expanded.
A radio operator today must maintain the
ships computers and other electronics. The
military has stopped Morse training so that
source has dried up.
(This article is a condensed version of
a presentation made at the August 1992
meeting of the Northern California DX
Club by Rod Dea/a'n NR 7E, reprintedfrom
DXer, journal of the Northern California
DX Club, September I 992.
11
 T AN EARLY STAGE in the
history of Morse telegraphy,
operators found that they
could make sense of the clicks of their
self-recordingreceiving instruments. Fol-
lowing this, the sounder evolved as a pur-
pose-built instrument for aural decoding,
a major step in the
development of
manual telegraphy.
Sounders re-
Who Buzzed First?
mained as the basic
by Tony Smith
receiving instrument
for manual Morse
on landlines in
Britain until the early 19305, when the
Post Ofce phased the Morse system out,
and the Army, faced with the prospect
of losing a valuable reserve pool of Post
Ofce operators, opted for greater use of
the tone signalling Fullerphone. In North
America sounders remained in use until
around the 1960s, and the last commercial
Morse via landline and sounder in
Australia was sent in 1963.
Radio operators today, familiar with
tone reception of Morse code, may
wonder why landline telegraphy contin-
ued to receivecode by clicks and did not African War of 18791880.
convert to tone when suitable systems
eventually became available. The simple
answer seems to be that by the time satis-
factory tone systems had evolved the
sounder had become an established and
reliable signalling instrument, in terms
of what was required from it, and it was
generally believed that reading tone
signals was more difcult than reading
sounder signals.
Change would also have involved
12
large-scale retraining of staff and the ex-
pensive installationof new equipment at
a time when, faced with faster alternative
landline systems,plus ever expanding and
improving wireless services, the writing
was already on the wall for landline Morse.
Despite the dominance of the sounder
in its day, however,
tone signalling did
have its champions,
and it would be in-
teresting to know
just when the rst
tone signals came
off the wire; or
indeed when they were rst used in
wireless, since the earliest radio systems
used conventional landline instruments
for receiving.
Military Buzzers
In May 1878 the British army was
considering the possibility that the
telephone might be used as a sounder to
receive Morse signals when the line
circuit was too bad for the ordinary
sounder to work, and it appears that this
idea was actually used in the South
The vibrating sounder, which was
extensively used by the British Army, was
invented by Lieut. Philip Cardew, Royal
Engineers, an instructor in telegraphy at
the School of Military Engineering at
Chatham, in 1881, and this may have
been the rst purpose-built Morse
buzzer signalling instrument. Preece and
Sivewright, in Telegraphy, new edition
1905, commented that where other
instruments fail from weak signals
EMM26
 Fig. 1 - Transmitter, Wbrating'mght) and
Connections 0! Transmitter, Vrbratrng
(below) Z r I?

l
From Instruction in Army Telegraphy
and Telephony, Vol. 1, HMSO, 1908
0
.-...-l

,---.----

ri
.
-

=__<@r:l:

Earlh
Line
'4.
a A

Telephone

[5,
Hgnd

through faults of insulation on the lines,
the vibrating sounder has proved
eminently successful.
It has been worked through sixteen
miles of bare wire laid on the ground in
England, and through over twenty-three
miles in Egypt, even when the conductor
was in contact with stay wires and railway
fences. It was used in the Egyptian and
South African campaigns, as well as
during the frontier expeditions in India,
and on the badly-insulatedjungle lines of
that country, Ceylon, and West Africa.
The 1908 edition ofInstruction in Army
Telegraphy and Telephony, Vol. 1, also
describes the vibrator system (Fig. 1), but
is more cautious in assessing its capabili-
ties. In the vibrating system, an ordinary
telephone receiver is used as the receiving
instrument, and the signals are given by

ma 13
long or short durations of buzzes in the
receiver, separated by periods of silence.
To produce these signals in the re-
ceiver, a rapidly vibrating or intermittent
current is required, the period of the
vibrations being about 150 to 500 a
second, viz., that of sound-waves. If this
period is kept steady, a more or less
P STATION
DOWN LINE
'-0.
~3
9 5m]
IILA
gale}.
ml:
.t
UP LINE
RECEIVERS
Fig. 2 - Relays used as a buzzer
musical note, having a denite pitch, is
produced in the receiver.
The advantages of this system are:
(i) The telephone receiver is extremely
sensitive, and consequently a very small
current is required.
(ii) Vibratory currents will pass through
condensers,and consequentlya circuit can
be divided into two pans, so that ordinary
(i.e., sounder Ed.) Morse currents will
pass through one path only, and the
vibrating currents through the other. This
enables the line to be used for two inde~
pendent telegraph circuits at the same time.
14
(iii) It is easy to produce very high
momentary EMFs by means of induction
coils or similar devices, and this, com-
bined with (i), enables this system to be
used on lines of very high resistance, and
comparatively poor insulation, without
the very large battery power that would
otherwise be required.
oowu 3T ION
II LIN
LINE
.
"III-m
.
W LINE
me Admiralty Electrical Manual, c.1910
(iv) The telephone receiver requires
no adjustment, and is always ready to
receive either strong or weak signals.
(v) The instruments required are light,
and the battery power small, consequently
the apparatus is very portable.
"The disadvantages of the system are
due to the same peculiarities of the
system, and are:
(i) The vibrating currents induce
similar currents in all neighbouringwires,
and these produce buzzes in any telephone
receiver connected to them. Thus several
vibratorcircuits cannot be run side by side
WEI/[26
for any distance, or even be connected to
the same earth, unless the latter be of
extremely low resistance...
(ii) Every line has a certain capacity
between itself and earth, and this capacity
increases with the length of line. Vibrat-
ing currents will pass through such a
camcity, and leak to earth on a long line,
even if it is well insulated. The vibrating
system is therefore not suited to working
on long lines. (About 40 miles is found
to be the limit for field cable lines).
(iii) It is more tiring to the operators
than ordinary sounder circuits, and the
speed of operating is slower.
A small addition to the apparatus
enables it to be used as a telephone; this
is very useful for what may be called
tactical lines, and also enables it to be
used for communication with a lineman
equipped with a telephone portable D,
without interrupting the Morse working
on the line. The system is also used for
calling in telephone work, where it is
desirable to avoid the weight due to a
generator and bell.
A similar system is described in the
Admiralty Electrical Manual, c.1910, and
in other Royal Navy manuals around
the same time, which used two Post
Ofce telegraph relays plus telephone re-
ceivers to achieve the same performance
(Fig. 2). The relay tongues were specially
adjusted to make them vibrate when the
sending key was depressed, and the same
advantages and disadvantages mentioned
in the Army manual were listed.
Early Patents
In 1887, Clement Adler, a Frenchman,
took out a British patent (No. 17 528) for
A Method and Apparatus for Phonic
9/006
Reception of Telegraphed Communica-
tions', which used DC on the line, passing
through a rapidly vibrating tongue at the
receiving end to convert the DC to an
audible signal. This device used telephone
receivers, one to each ear, to receive
reversed polarity signals (dots positive,
dashes negative) with dots heard as a
signal in one ear and dashes in the other,
alternatively, the system could provide
signals of high and low pitch to enable
the dots and dashes to be distinguished
by their sound. Obviously derived from
Brights Bells (see Railway Morse is
Different, MMll), this is an interesting
early use of double headphones, although
it is not known if it was ever put to
practical use.
In 1896 Alfred Charles Brown of
Lewisham appliedforapatent(No. 30 123)
for Improvementsin Means of Telegraph-
ing through Long Uninsulated or Badly
Insulated Submarine or other Submerged
Cables, and in Maintaining Communica-
tion notwithstanding a Break in the
Continuity of the conductor.
This invention also used a locally
powered mechanical or electromagnetic
vibrator which converted conventional
Morse signals to audible tones to be
received through a telephone receiver.
According to the inventor, speaking at a
meeting of the IEE on 24 April 1919, this
apparatus was used for working through
broken submarine cables by the Direct
United States Cable Company; also by
the Europe and Azores Company and,
he believed, by the Eastern Telegraph
Company.
The F uIIerphone
In 1915, Captain A.C. Fuller invented
15

the Fullerphone (see MMS), a eld
telegraph, employing DC to line and a
chopper at the receivingend, in the same
way as in the inventions of Adler and
Brown. Signals sent by this system did
not affect other nearby lines, thus over-
coming the major disadvantage of the
earlier vibrating sounder telegraphs. It
had other advantages too, which (by then
r-
Fig. 3. Telegraphsounder
used with coherer detector
From Princ'ples of Electricity, Part
Telephone, The IndustrialPram, NY, 1911
Major) Fuller outlined in a paper read
before the IEE The Fullerphone, and its
application to Military and Civil Telegra-
phy, at the meeting referred to above.
Fuller suggested that in some circumstanc-
es his invention offered advantages over
other instruments used on existing civil
lines, and that an investigation of its
possibilities for use with submarinecables
would also prove protable. He had a
rough reception, however, including
Browns claim to prior invention, and a
summary of this interesting meeting will
be included in a future issue of MM.
Wireless Reception
The earliest wireless receivers used
coherer detectors which activated local
circuits, enabling the signals received to
be read from sounders, ink-writers or
other conventional telegraph instruments
16
l
(Fig. 3). According to RF. Pocock &
GR.M. Garratt, in The Origins of Mari-
time Radio, HMSO 1972, the Russian
physicist Alexander Popov (referred to in
the USSR as the inventor of radio) while
seeking to eliminate the relay from his
receiver, in 1898, used a telephone
receiver to obtain audible signals.
rig
Marconi, for his transatlantic tests of
COHERER
llllll
EY
TELEGRAPH RELAY I
BAT
Ill
0 , r _,
i Barren
T
V, Telegraph 5
SOUN ER
1901, used a self-restoringcoherer as his
detector in Newfoundland, a detector
which operated by rectifying the radio-
frequency signal to provide an audio
signal. By the end of 1902 Marconi
receivers being installed on ships
incorporated a magnetic detector', the
Maggie, which provided an audible note
through headphones, and this apparatus
remained in service for nearly twenty years.
On land, the British Post Ofce was
apparently less progressive, as recorded
by Lee de Forest in his autobiography,
Father of Radio, pub. Wilcox & Follett
Co, (USA) 1950. In 1903 he arrived in
Britain to demonstrate his wireless system
to the Post Ofce in competition with their
own Lodge-Muirhead system. Stations
were set up in Holyhead in Wales and at
Howth, near Dublin, in Ireland. After an
exchange at 35wpm between the two
W6
stations, the ofcials gingerly donned the
cans, the rst time they had ever re-
ceived code through telephone receivers,
and conversed slowly back and forth with
no difculty except that due to their
inexperience in sound receiving by spark
note. In sheer amazement they wimessed
the ease and speed with which my two
boys, eighty miles apart, slammed up and
down the antenna transfer switch and got
back their replies from their chattering
American keys, far faster than the
ofcials could write off their messages...
"The tardy reports of their tests and
ndings nally ltered tluough the cum-
bersome les of the British GPO and
there the matter rested and died. For
Great Britain decided that any wireless
system as simple and rapid as ours could
not possibly be safe and reliable...
QBincfersfor Morsum Magnicat
MMZ6
However, it was not long before
altematingcurrent generator transmitters,
self-restoring detectors, and headphone
receivers began to appear in certain
British (and German) wireless stations!
Our bleak labors had at least driven a nail
into the coherers cofn...
Further Information?
This article has been in the nature
of an exploratory rst look at the sub-
ject. If any readers can provide further
information or references relating to the
early use of buzzer or tone Morse,
especially from countries outside Britain,
please contact the author. Comments on
the comparativemerits of receiving Morse
by sounder v. buzzer or tone by those with
experience of the two systems will also be
very welcome. MM
Tidy up your bookshelf
with these attractive binders.
Covered in a hard-wearing red grained finish,
with the magazine title blocked in gold on the
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the magazine, retained by strong wires, but
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Send your order with a cheque or postal order
or credit card details (number and expiy) to:
G C Arnold Farmers, 9 Wetherby Close,
Broadstone, Dorset BH18 8J8, England
Overseas payments must be in Staring
17
 ETWEEN 1948 AND 1955,
I served as a radio operator
during three tours of duty
in the French Army in what was then
IndoChina (now Vietnam).
The small radio stations that formed
part of our xed network were mostly
equipped with the famous British BZ set,
a small transmitter and receiver of about
20 watts output, designed specically
for secret wartime agents. It had a
simple superhet receiver, with no lters,
allied to a small transmitter with external
crystal and plug-in
coils, all powered
from a battery and lndo-China Memories
vibrator.
There was no by Francis Madnesco F6500
break-in or audible
sidetone, and only
one crystal was issued to each operator.
The transmitter could be made, at a
stretch, to work as a frequency doubler
although this was theoretically forbidden
as only one frequency was permitted for
each network.
One Drawback
This little unit worked pretty well al-
though its main drawback was that on
transmit one could hear a very loud and
constant unkeyed note from the oscillator.
There was no audible break in the tone,
which excluded the use of double-contact
keyers or sideswipers. These were pro- hours the following morning.
hibited anyway as they were difcult to
read, although initially operators used
whatever they liked.
In many ways, therefore, it was just
like a small homebrew amateur radio four operators but often there were only
18
station. These little sets worked for years,
practically without maintenance, often
handling dozens of long messages every
day. Their long life, however, nally
came to an end.
One-017'Miracle
I remember once seeing a colleague
arrive in Hanoi who, with his BZ under
his arm, marched into his immediate super-
iors ofce, dumped the set on his desk
and asked him if he could not see that
the thing was encrusted and half-eaten
away by damp?
Whereupon a mira-
cle occurred and my
colleague returned
to his rice-elds with
a brand-new GRC9!
This sort of
miracle only happened once. None of the
other BZ operators had the nerve of my
colleague and they had to live on with
their moulding 82s as they gradually fell
to bits.
There probably is some truth in the old
saying, Help yourself and Heaven will
help you!
The Larger Stations
In general, work in the larger radio
stations was organised in shifts which ran
from 0800 to 1400 hours, 1400 to 2000
hours and overnight from 2000 to 0800
Rest periods were arranged according
to the number of operators available, sub-
ject to the station remaining operational
all the time. There were supposed to be
W6
three, and some isolated stations had to
manage with two.
This meant 12 hours on and 12 hours
off, which was extremely demanding on
the operators, mining their sleep com-
pletely. I did this for about three months
so I know what I am talking about. Even
with four, the tremendous amount of
trafc wrecked the nerves of the operators
and it often happened that the morning
following a night duty one could not get
to sleep easily.
Extra Shift
The worst thing that could happen was
the relief operator not showing up in the
morning and one having to work an extra
shift, making a total of 18 hours concen-
trated keying and listening.
Other rotas were tried out, for example
splitting the night into two 6-hour shifts.
This turned out to be even worse as one
lost two nights of sleep over four days
instead of one.
Eventually, most of us got used to
the system, but not all. I had women
operators taking dnigs to keep awake but
they were eventually sent home on
medical grounds. I even had one who fell
asleep while taking heavy trafc. As she
didnt acknowledge receipt, hours of
trafc were lost and one can imagine
the enthusiasm of the sending operator'
who had to start all over again! However,
overall the women were excellent
operators.
Aggressive Operating
By contrast, the men became excited,
tensed up to a state very close to aggres-
sion which improved the quality and speed
of their sending through the night. How-
W6
ever, the main problem was the same for
all lack of sleep. Only new operators
were able to sleep for 12 hours after a
night shift but this luxury did not last
for long.
The North Americans have studied
what constitutes a good operator and how
to become one. They concluded that at
least ten years of heavy trafc was needed
to reach the required level of prociency
butI never qualied in that sense.
Working CW under our conditions
produced an addictive effect. On the few
occasions when trafc temporarily light-
ened, some operators began to read the
high-speed automatic Morse messages
transmitted by press agencies. Others,
myself included, transmitted detective
stories page by page to their correspond-
ent stations!
SharpenedSkills
A friend of mine sometimes worked
with two keys, one in each hand, changing
from one to the other after each word.
This addiction had its advantages. For ex-
ample, I learned to use the Vibroplex,
sharpening my skill so that I could switch
from straight key to bug, one to the other
without any problem.
But I could not do this nowadays.
Apart from losing my skill over the years,
I have been spoiled by using an electronic
keyer ever since I became a radio ama-
teur. This gadget was unknown in Indo-
China, and even the type with valves
(tubes) was a rare phenomenon at that
time. The rst one I ever saw, inciden-
tally, was in Morocco, assembled by
a local amateur, and he was the only
operator in the country possessing such
a sophisticatedpiece of apparatus!
19
Age is the Cure!
Anyway, about that CW-addiction, if
it's any comfort... it does die out as you
approach old age!
(F6EQC was in the French Army
from 1947 to 1959, serving in Germany,
Indo-China and Morocco. He worked in
various electronics companies until 1987
and is now retired. He became a radio
amateur in 1976 and still enjoys CW on
the amateur bands.
Thanks to Dominique Bourcart
FEIOEB, Ian Clarke GORTF and John
Gilbert 0N4AGJ, for assistance in trans-
lating F6EQC5 notes).
MM

FISTS CW Club - The International Morse Preservation Society

FISTS exists to promote amateur CW activity.
It welcomes members with all levels of Morse
proci-
ency, and especially newcomers to the key.
The club has awards. nets (including a beginners'
net), dial-a-sked ior beginners, straight key activities,
QSL bureau, newsletter,and discounts from traders.
Further iniormation can be obtained from
Geo. Longden 63205, 119 Cemetery Road,
Darwen, Lanes 883 2Lz. Send an s.a.e. or two IRCs.

BA CK ISSUES In the February/March

Limited stocks of Issues Nos. 19, 20,
RAADIO
21 and 24 only are still available,
price 2.20 each to UK addresses,
2.25 overseas by surface mail. All
Woo
o8.
other Issues are now out of print The 1 -V-1 Rides Again!
(new series givingfull details of the design
and construction ofa 3-valve short-wave
receiver using modern components)
RAF Transmitter/Receiver T.R.2
The Philips S upen'nductance Receivers
Early Days of Radio Controlled Models
IN THE NEXT ISSUE: Annual subscription (6 issues) 17 to UK
addresses, 18 overseas by surface mail.
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Women of Wireless All payments must be in Sterling
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Telegraphy Highlights in
Broadstone, Dorset BH18 8J8, England
Adelaide Museum
For a sample copy, send [3.00 out U535 bill

20
AND LOTS MORE!
E.E
MM6
 N MY ARTICLE on the Space- prevent walking for those using heavy
Matic 213 (MM25, p.8) I men- pressure. Additional weight, if required,
tioned that I used a solid-state can be added by using two heavy C-cell
paddle with that keyer. I found this very batteries such as the Ever Ready Alkaline
good, and in use it didnt feel any different Energizers. When using external power,
to using a mechanical paddle. The paddle batteries can still be added for weight
in question was Data Engineering Inc.s purposes only. When using batteries for
Electronic Feather this purpose they
Touch Key, dating must be disconnect-
ed from the key
from around 1972.
The following de-
Feather Touch circuitry. This can
scription of the key be accomplished by
by Ken HandaIlGDsFH
and its features is turning theON-OFF
taken from the in- switch to the OFF
struction leaet: position.
GENERAL: The ELECTRONIC FEATHER TOUCH KEY INTERNAL
SOlid state key has The solid-state desi n detects the mere touch of POWER lS prOVid-
tin or and eiminates such problems as
been designed to your contact unce, proper adjustments and dirty ed by the use Of
macs' Operates with all keyers. Mighed'
drive the most de $22.95, $25.95 (with SPOT Switch Option) two C-cell batteries
manding electronic mounted in the hold
keyers by the mere ers provided inside
touch of the ngers each key. Battery
to its paddles. Tran- voltage can be
sistor amplier turned off by the use
switches are provid- of the ONOFF
ed for keying key- switch at the rear of
ers with negative or 1972 advertisement for the Feather Touch Key the key.
positive grounds. EXTERNAL
Two identical circuits are provided (see POWER of 3 to 4.5 volts can be applied
next page), composing the solid-state key. to the red conductor in the units shielded
Each circuit consists of a high input cable. WARNING: Voltages greater than
impedance silicon monolithic integrated 4.5 volts will permanently damage the
level detector amplier. This amplier is high impedance ampliers.
used to convert the mechanical touch of RF IMMUNITY is provided by the use
a nger to a suitable electrical signal for of a shielded cable. Additional suppres-
driving the output ampliers. The output sion is provided by the use of by-pass
amplier is used to directly drive the capacitors on each cable conductor and
input circuitry of any electronic keyer the paddles. If required, by-pass capaci-
using positive or negative voltage. tors can be added to the terminatedend of
WEIGHTS have been added to the key to each cable conductor.

MMZG 21
 Fig. 1-Comection
lor negative ground
keyer W
F3739? _"

ELECTRONIC
DZ

3-08
Cs 37
"
2

KEY
:3.

3
warm.)
Pos.
NEG. M)
POWEthicId)

teen
(7
o
O

0
ELECTRONIC KEYER

cazasar
0-020-GL\ f
4

1

:2:"""",
. a

Hg.2-Connectonlor
_

W
posmvegroundkeyer po; ngygglshigrd}
o
man2'
-o

CBZ3931

GRoggNQ (SHIELD)
RED)
DASH (WHITE)
. ~
N taLAcm
frm (GREEN)

CB23932

:11;
'T

Fig. 3 - Schematic diagram of the Electronic Feather Touch Key

THE OPTION available with the key KEYER CONNECTION: As shown

providesa single-pole, doublethrowpush-
button switch for external control purpos-
es, such as a tune switch. The open side
of the switch is connected to the black
conductor in the shielded cable. The wiper
of the SPDT switch is grounded.
above, connecting the key to the keyer is
accomplished by connecting the output of
the key to the input terminalsof the keyer.
Straps are provided on each circuit board
to allow keying of both negative or posit-
ive ground keyers. Fig. 1 shows the straps

22 WEI/26
necessary for keying negativeground key-
ers. Fig. 2 shows the straps necessary for
keying positive ground keyers. The keys
are strapped for negative ground keyers at
our plant. If you have a positive ground
keyer such as the Digi-Key or HA-l, etc.,
the straps must be changed to those shown
in Fig. 2. When using internal batteries the
red conductor in the cable is not connect-
ed to the keyer.
OPERATION of the unit will be dis-
cussed covering only one of the two pad-
dle assemblies that for the dash. The
input to the input amplier under static
conditions is a high resistance ground,
through the 10 megohm resistor R1, its
output under this condition is also at
ground. The ground from the output of
the input amplier 1C1 clamps the base of
the npn transistor Q1 at ground through
diode D1. This ground prevents the tran-
sistor from conducting and provides an
open circuit at the keys output. Placing a
nger on the paddle causes a voltage to
appear at the input of the input amplier
and cause the ground to be removed from
its output. This ground removes the volt-
age clarnp from the base of the output
transistor. Base voltage is now provided
through the 1000 ohm resistor R2, diode
D1 and the 18 000 ohm resistor R3, caus
ing the transistor to conduct. Conduction
of the output transistor places a ground at
the keys output. The pnp transistor Q2
is used when keying negative voltage
keyers. The transistor is driven by the
output of Q1.
OUTPUT of the key is through an open
npn or pnp transistor collector. The npn
transistor is used to key those keyers with
positive voltage appearing across its in-
put. The transistor can handle a maximum
MMZS
of 20 volts at 10 milliamps. The pnp tran-
sistor is used to key those keyers with
negative voltage appearing across its in-
put The transistor can handle a maximum
of 25 volts at 30 milliamps. When the key
is used to drive an inductive load, voltage
spikes developed by the inductive load
must be suppressed. Failure to provide
suitable suppression will permanently
damage the output transistors.
ERRATTC KEYING: Voltage appear-
ing on the paddles causes the keys output
to go to ground. It has been noticed that
this input voltage is reduced to the point
where the key becomes erratic if one
touches an AC ground while keying, or
if the AC power plug to the attached
keyer or transmitter is reversed. With the
key and keyer connected reverse the AC
power plug until erratic keying disap
pears. If erratic keying re-appears when
the keyer is connected to a transmitter, it
may be necessary to then reverse the
power plug to the transmitter. MM
Readers s
WANTED
Key WT 8 Amp, two-bridge type, made
by Westclox or Northern Electric of Canada,
as in Fig. 4, page 24. of MM22. Wyn
Davies, Pen-y-Maes, Halcog, Brymbo,
Wrexham, Clwyd LL11 5DR, Wales,
'phone 0978 756330.
Fisk Solarscope; designed by Sir Ernest Fisk
and produced by EMI about 40 years ago.
Replies to John Davies G4ETQ, 'phone
Worcester (0905) 58141 after 6pm.
Handbook of Technical Instruction for
Wireless Telegraphisrs, 6th or 7th Edition.
by Dowsett. Good price paid. Phone Geoff
on Broadstone (0202) 658474.
23
 Showcase
Featuring keys and other collectors items of telegraphic interest.
If anyone can add to the information given please contact TS

GOl-JT

Hanson

Jon

Collection/photo.

(above) US Army Signal

Corps flame proof key
J-5-A. Order No. 2670
NY41. LS. BradefgCo.,
Newark, NJ

US Army Signal Corps

J37. No circuit closer.
May be found on an
assortment of bases with GOFJT

different numbers, e.g.,

J45, J48A lnlonnafion Hanson

from Introduction to Key

.bn
Collecting by Tom French
thMO (reviewed in
MM1 7 and available from Collection/photo:

the MM Bookshelf)

24 MM26
 Reproduction A & P telegraph key, c. 1850, by DennisGoacher G3LLZ. The base is not authentic
as the original leg' key would have been mounted drectly on an operating desk with wiring under
the desk This was the first key to have a coil spring, the brainchild of 7homas Avery, an assistant
to S.F.B. Morse. A full set of drawings, with explanatorynotes, an be obtained from Dennis
Goacher at 27 Glevum Road, Swindon, Wilts 8N3 4AA for 1 plus postage

GOFJT

Hanson

Jon

Colleaion/Photo:

No. 2 gooseneck pattern main line relay. J.H. Bunnell. As used by the Western Union and
Postal Telegraphcompanies. Late model, in brand new condition

{Mm/26 25
 Info Tlease!
Readers require further information on the following keys, etc.
Please write to Tony Smith, I Tash Place. London N11 IPA. England, if you can help.
All useful iryormalion received will be published in MM in a later issue.

GOFJT

Hanson

Jan

Collection/Photo:

(above) Unknown, British made.

Inlonnation required

Mystery key, no markings. Heavy chrome on

solidmarble case with marble navy type'
knob. John Hehak N6Hl says the picture N6HI

does not do it justice. .. it'sjust beautiful!

Information wanted Photo:

26
 EARNING MORSE has
taught me several things, most-
ly about myself. Ive always
been a slow learner. While you can teach
an old dog new tricks (47 when I started),
he doesnt get any faster with age. I also
learned that every A licensee knows the
best way to learn
Morse, and they are
all different!
I made the mis-
On Learning Morse
take of acceptingthe
by Peter Davies GOKGA
then widely held
view that one should
get the RAE (Radio
Amateurs Examination) before starting
Morse because one wouldbe ready to pass
the Morse long before the RAE and then
forget it. A year later the DTI removed the
restrictionthat the Morse test expires after
12 months if not converted into an A'
licence!
When I rst started listening to the
short waves was very fnistrated that I
1 time (albeit after hearing each character
could not understand the Morse trafc.
I should have startedMorse then because I
had a burning desire to read it As it was,
I had to train myself to ignore it because
the frustration was getting to me. The prob-
lem was that after I passed the RAE I
couldnt re-awaken that burning desire
which would have spurred me on!
Hopefuls
I joined my clubs Morse class that
Septemberalong with a dozen other hope-
fuls. At rst I couldnt tell a dit from a
dah. If you played me one character slow-
ly and then another, I could say they were,
or were not, the same, but I couldnt tell
{Mm/26
what dits and dahs were in them or repeat
them either. Fortunately that soon passed.
I tape-recorded each evenings practice
and worked on it over the week.
By Christmas I was at ve words a
minuteand falling behind the class. I came
to realise what hard work it was. Thank
goodness I had tak-
en up the B licence
instead of waiting
for the A.lbecame
a dropout!
The following
April, GGBV and
G4XVU persuaded
me to join them with GlIAK for Morse
practice on Friday nights. The main pur-
pose was to get GlIAK up to pass
standard. My interest was re-kindled and
encouraged when I recalled Pat Hawkers
comment in A Guide to Amateur Radio
that in WWII it had been found that
anyone could learn Morse, given enough
about 40 000 times!).
These weekly sessions lasted about a
year. I was also using one of the Clubs
Datong Morse Tutors. When commuting
to work I would put my case on my knees
with notepad and Datong on top, plug in
the phones and get in 20 minutes
practice, morning and evening, courtesy
of British Rail.
Strange Man
What curiosity it raised! Mummy, why
is that strange man writing down things
from the radio? Where does the cassette
go in? And the wondering looks and bent
heads trying to read the Datongs mark-
27
ings. Sometimes, out of pure devilment, I
would turn up the speed and accident-
ally pull out the phone plug for a
second or two.
A year later, in the autumn, I joined
Roy G4UNLs Monday night class at
Wood Green. I now had my own Datong
and was up to 9 wpm. I went in the
junior class with Nicola whose G4 hus-
band had promised her an HF rig if she
got her A' licence. How they drove me!
By ChristmasNicola and I were promoted
to the senior group to make room for some
beginners. Nicola was being polished for
the test My speed was now 10 wpm.
Id always had trouble with numbers
I
so spent ten days concentratingon them.
With the Datong I could vary the speed
and the delay between characters. Soon I
was receiving numbers at 1518 wpm
and could count either dits or dahs!
Drawbacks
The Datong (and similar devices) has
two drawbacks. First, it doesnt tell you
what it has sent although as you go on you
realise when you are making mistakes.
Second, it sends computer generated per-
fect Morse. You actually need practice
in receiving handsent Morse as the test is
all by hand. Nevertheless, it was a great
help. Without it I might still be learning!
I also used a program on my Commo-
dore 64 home computer. With this I
prepared a tape of the characters I had
trouble with, like I and S; S and H; H and
5; D and B; Uand V; V and H. Morse had
taught me that I couldn't count over two!
It also brought home to me that my sense
of timing is awful. I can hear E and T in
the same word and confuse them because
I lose the timing between letters!
28
Other troublesomecharacters were Q,
L, Y, X, W, and P. One side of the tape
was at 12 wpm and the other, with the
same content, at 15. After a fortnight I felt
cured. Try it. It worked for me!
Sending numbers was also trouble-
some. With more than two dahs I had to
count them off as I sent them. With four or
five I had to say diddy diddy dah and
diddy diddy dit as I worked the key.
Three was hit or miss until someone
suggested have a banaaanaaa. They all
worked and I still use them. Its the only
way I can send numbers. Remember? I
cant count over two!
Convivial
Roys classes were more like a
little club. Besides we two pupils about
half-a-dozen former pupils, now A
licensees, attended for the practice, con-
viviality, and Roys coffee. Nicola passed
the test and Fred came in from the juniors
to join me.
Against my better judgement I was
persuaded to put in for the test to be held
in August 1988. By now I was practising
in every spare period, including my
lunch hour at work. There was a key and
oscillator in my desk!
The dreaded day arrived. Dreaded
because I really feltI wasnt good enough
and Id seen the shattered wrecks of other
candidates. The test was Wednesday
evening and I took the day off work so I
could anive in the best possible condition.
I practised and rested and arrived in
good time. There were six of us and I was
in the second session. I took Datong and
key and got in a little practice to limber
up before going into The Room!
Administering the tests, Roy was part-
W126
nered by Machine Gun Kelly, and guess
who was sending in my session! His big
key was mounted on a board, fastened to
the table by a G-clamp. Poised over the
key, his hand darted down and a single
character ew out at what seemed like
25 wpm! A pause, then another pause,
like short bursts from a tommy-gun.
Unlike anything Id heard before but I
concentratedand got most of it.
They gave us a couple of minutes to
tidy up our scripts and I lled in a few
missing letters and re-wrote some illegi-
ble words. Roy said later that mine was
the worst written hed ever seen. But what
chance did I have to practice calligraphy?
One word escaped me totally. I distinctly
heard double F but couldnt guess at a
suitable word. It turned out to be double
P! Penalty, two errors for the word. One
more made three. Four allowed. Pass!
Now the numbers. S hesitation M,
pause thats a number? Brrup brrup,
bmrp brrup dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit.
Hed made a mistake in the rst block! Oh
boy, a chance to start again. Now I knew
what to expect I concentrated hard on
counting the dahs and got them all down.
(Just two wrong pass!)
Machine Gun Smiled
Sending was done individually, in
private. I was the last of our three. I sat
down and positioned my key. I noticed
my hands were trembling. Me! Cool, calm
and collected me! I was so astonished I
held them up and said,Heavens! Theyre
shaking! Machine gun smiled and said
kindly, When youre ready, in your own
time. I collectedmy wits, glanced through
the text, and sent a few Vs. The tremble
was no problem, and I started.
W6
Muffed in the middle of the second
word; eight dits, send the word again.
Muffed in the middle of the fourth word,
this is no good, CONCENTRATEDONT
RUSH; eight dits, send word again. Half-
way through, Machine Gun said, Stop.
Thats ne. Send the numbers now please.
Oh boy, two corrections. If I didnt miss
any thats a pass. So far so good. Take
your time, rest the arm. Now send.
Failure!
Enor in the second group. Correct
it! Error in the third group. COME ON,
TWO IS THE LIMIT! CONCENTRATE!
Correct and continue with great care.
Thats betta. Last group coming up, oh
blast! Muffed second last number.Correct
and nish. but thats the third so Ive failed!
I went on to the Club and when asked
I said I had failed. Roy came in and when
I said I wasnt out to win medals for
bravery under re he said But hes got a
higher pass rate than I have! He tried to
cheer me up but I wasnt having iL I knew
I had failed.
And Success!
The slip came in Saturdays post. A
PASS!!!! It turned out that I had made
only TWO errors in sending numbers,
ditto text, and none uncorrected!
At the next Club meeting I displayed
the slip and bragged. Only three years
and ten months hard labour from start to
nish. G4VMR (he prints MM Ed.)
said, Thats nothing. It took me ve years
and ve tests. Should I believe him?
Adaptedfrom an article written for
HAMSTER, magazine of the Cheshunt
and District Amateur Radio Club
29
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W6 31
 NOTHER INCIDENT in whether Storm or Fair Weather, was 400ft.
which Shorty and I were in- I qualied automatically for the kite launch-
volved concerned a kite aer- ing job, being both the tallest and the most
ial. Our old L-boat was running on the junior. I climbed up to the after-end of the
surface in foul weather somewhere west periscope casing, to where it curvedround
of the Orkneys. .. neither the Main nor the the inverted porcelain bowl of the Deck
Diving aerials would radiate due to spray Insulator, wedged a foot in either side and
swarnping the insulators and we were or- took the kite when it was handed up.
dered to put up a storm kite so that com- I clipped the end of the wire to the kite
munication could be established with the and Lieut. Commander London-Browne,
parent ship. our captain, known to all and sundry as
Storm kites were smaller than the fair Low Down Brown, ordered the helmsman
weather variety, which were only for use to turn the boat into the wind. It was not a
in light winds. With their lifting power great deal of help on that wild and windy
greatly increased by day but at least it cut
a strong wind, it down the amount of
sometimes needed Aerials for Subs 3 salt Spindrift whip-
two men on the ping off a beam sea
winch handles when into our faces like
reeling in a storm lead shot
kite. It was a long
and frustrating job
Kite Wire launching that kite in
Admiralty kite a gusting wind cou-
wire was 36st1and pled with the turbu-
phosphor-bronze, lence created at the
but little thicker than rear of the bridge by
18 SWG plain wire. the air stream around
It was very strong the periscope stand-
and exible, with a ew ards. It was made
by Chas Claydon GM46NB (SK)
great appetite for no easier by a steady
skin and esh if you ow of gratuitous
tried to handle the advice from Low
kite without the thick leather gloves that Down, whose only kite-ying experience
were standard issue. The wire came in was probably in a public park with his
100ft hanks, with a smaller version of the nanny in command.
type of clip used for signal ags at each Then the kite gaineda little height with
end, and several hundred feet of wire were now and again a downward swoop to-
usually wound on the drum ready for use. wards the wave-tops, disaster only being
The mandatory length of a kite aerial, averted by much hasty hauling in on my
32 W6
part. Finally it ew steady and Shorty al- it probably wont, I said, not a chance.
lowed the prescribed 400ft to run off be- Shorty however was keeping his eye on
fore unclipping the wire from the drum Low Down who, together with the able
and handing it up to me to attach to the seaman helmsman, was the only other
central conductor in the deck insulator. person on the bridge apart from we two.
When Low Down turned to look over the
Run it All Out! bows there came a sudden shout from
That done, I climbed down and trans- Shorty, kites down Sir.
mission was ordered to commence. After Sure enough, the kite emerged from
a few minutes the trafc was cleared and the cloud and plunged into the sea Low
we waited for the order Down Kite. The Down,seeming somewhatpeeved, snarled,
order never came. Low Down was gazing what happened?
at the kite straining at the end of its bar- Wire parted, replied Shorty, adding
taut 400ft of wire and suddenly asked, we dont usually run out more than 400
How much wire is there on the drum? feet, Sir...
Another600 feet, Sir , replied Shorty. Low Down seemedabout to say some-
Run it all out thing else but had
said Low Down. probably remem-
Shorty and I bered that as cap
exchangedglances tain he should
and he gave an al- have known that
most impercepti- anyway. He told
ble shrug before I us to put some
clipped the end of more wire on the
the remaining wire drum and had to
on the drum to the be told as tactfully
kite wire and we as possible that we
watched the kite had used up the
disappear in low quarters issue.
cloud. We were His reply was
gloomily contem- clear the bridge.
plating the pros- Shorty and I
pect of a hernia made our way
apiece reeling that "056 0' REM-n Amati... down the conning
lot in, when Shorty
.0 A

tower hatch lad-

moved closer to me and muttered, I reck-
on well lose this one.
Kites down!
Bearing in mind MGonagles Inver-
sion of Murphys Law, which states that
when you think a thing is likely to happen
der to the Control room and squeezed into
our tiny Wireless Ofce.
Bit of luck, that wire paning, I said.
Shorty smiled as he carefully replaced the
side-cutting pliers in the tool rack. Yes,
he said, some funny things happenat sea.
MM

MM6 33
 HE San Francisco earthquake a ceivers between each other by putting a
few years back shook the dust telegraph key in the ground lead of the
in my brain, unearthing related antenna. The oscillating receiver would
informationof long ago. I often wondered radiate a local signal in an improvised
what the city of Watsonville, California, network without using the transmitter. (The
was like, having once encountered a present day cats make a big fuss about
person from the ss City of Watsonville, a networking. Big deal, we had that fty
West coast steam years ago.)
schooner. When the During World
quake hit, I found War II this type of
out-thecity popped Earthquake Memories receiver was re-
out of our TV set placed by a TRF
The rst time I (Tuned Radio Fre-
sailed through the quency) set. The
Golden Gate there TRF set did not emit
was no bridge. An a tone which enemy
old snapshot of a submarines could
crew member shows home upon, prevent-
only a partially com- ing the loss of many
pleted tower in the allied ships.
background. This Back to earth-
being my FS (First quakes. When I was
Ship, an abbrevia- a very small tyke I
tion used in the op- listened to stories
erator listings by the by Era Erickson about the 1905 San
Society of Wireless Francisco earth-
Pioneers) after over quake which des-
a year of unemployment, it was very troyed most of the city. A man who was
exciting and made me feel like a part of there, a Swedish scenery and sign painter,
the gold rush which happened seventy- related his experiences while working
ve years earlier. We docked to unload on stage scenery. Every day I used to go
some sulphur in Alameda, which is near listen to him backstage. He said that after
Oakland, the site of the double-decker the major shocks, 3 group of Firms and
highway collapse a few years back. Swedes gathered in the hills to erect
makeshift shelters and cook outdoors in a
Oscillating Receiver grove of trees.
A year later, I remember there were a A group of men would forage for food
dozen ships at anchor tied up due to in the box cars at the railroad yards, there
labour problems. The stranded operators being no relief organizations according to
communicated with their regenerative re- him. No two-way radio system assisted in
34 MM6
the disaster relief. The US Army was on
the scene, however, and should a soldier
see an able-bodied man, the man would
be detained and given a shovel to work
with a crew cleaning up the rubble in the
streets. He would be sent to an army eld
kitchen for chow, probably soup and bread.
Tight Scheduling
Returning to the steam schooners I
mentioned earlier, in the course of sailing
along the coast to load up with lumber,
ships had to enter many small ports to get
to the saw mills. A West Coast type of
wooden ship was developed called the
steam schooner. These small ships had
tall booms that could reach out over the
lumber dock for a skid load of fresh
boards delivered by a jitney*. Prior
vessels were sailing ships. Steam was an
update, and the booms you couldnt miss
even miles away.
A company in this business once tried
to run twelve ships with ten wireless oper-
ators. With the tight scheduling in this
shuttle, an operator had his suitcase
packed all the time. When he pulled into
port, another ship without an operator
*A small motor-vehicle,usually carrying
passengers for a smallfare. Ed.
would be waiting. He would sign off, grab
his bag, walk down the dock and up
the gangway to his new job. The
whistle would blow, lines were cast off,
and another four-day trip was under way.
His FCC license service record got
crowded, so everyone had a legal size
paper attached for the captains signature.
No Information
While anchored off Astoria, Oregon,
waiting for the weather to moderate, the
ss Iowa steamed by us and headed out.
The captain had decided to cross the
Columbia River bar. He never made it,
nor did thirty-eight of his crew, including
several of my friends. The next day we
entered Grays Harbor and docked at
Hoquim, Washington, followed by the
ss City of Watsonville who tied up astem.
The radio man came aboard and said he
had heard the Iowas SOS sputter out
and that we might walk uptown to get a
newspaper for details.
We found nothing. Of course, today
its different with the electronic media.
Sometimes TV has the earthquake live
and in progress. The commanding virtue
of electronics is that relief and assistance
come faster to alleviate human suffering
and disastrousdestruction. MM

G-QRP Club
The GORP Club promotes and encourages low-power operating
on the amateur bands with activity periods, awards and trophies.
Facilities include a quarterly magazine, Morse training tapes, kits,
traders' discounts and a QSL bureau. Novices and SWLs welcome.
Enquiries to Rev. George Dobbs Ganv, St Aldans Vicarage,
498 Manchester Road, Ftochdale, Lancs OL11 3HE. Send a
large s.a.e. or two IRCs.

W6 35
 HE HCC is a national organisation

is held at the begin-
devoted to encouraging the use of ning of each year with the
CW in amateur radio in Spain. actual date chosen to avoid unnecessary
Membership is open to all Spanish radio conict with similaractivities arranged by
amateurs and to foreignamateurs provided other organisations.
they have a Spanish call. There is no speed Throughout the year, to keep mem-
requirement for bers active and in-
membership. The volved, longer-term
club is a member of Club Profile
contests are held 7
the European CW such as a CW
Association and its Hispanla CW Club (HCC)
Marathon, the
members regularly Rami Game', and
support the various the II Centenary
EUCW activities arranged by other SEB. Morse which has an award bear-
memberclubsand by EUCW itself. ing a portrait of Prof. Morse. An annual
Most informal HCC activity is around meeting of members is held in a different
7.020/7.028MHz, with the majority of city in Spain each year.
QSOs in Spanish. A Straight Key contest conrmedon page 48

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HISPAN IA CW CLUB
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CERTFICA:

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131

The HCC 2CSM'Award, an impressive fu/Iooiour certicate measuring 14% by 10% inches

36 W6
 DourLetters
Headers'letters on any Morse subject are always welcome, but may be edited when space is
limited. When more than one subject is covered, they may be divided into single subjects in order
to bring comments on various matters together for easy reference.
The Magnetic Relay
Prior to the invention of the magnetic
relay the distance between telegraph
stations was frequentlyquite small, due to
ohmic losses in the circuit In those days
to send a message it had to be relayed.
This means it was received by one
operator and then retransmitted to
another. This was both expensive and
increased the likelihoodof errors. To solve
this problem the magnetic relay was
invented.
From this simple device a whole range
of logic circuits was to evolve. These were
based on relays which now carried com-
plex switching systems, e.g., multi-pole
switches in which certain circuits bnoke
before others made. Telephone ex-
changes and railway signalling systems
were good examples. The development
of such circuits and a branch of mathe-
matics called Boolean algebra laid the
foundationsof modem computing.
Nowadays, with the growth of elec-
tronics and solid-state switching devices,
the magnetic relay takes a back place in
control technology.
However, like Morse, it once ruled the
world. I sometimes wonder if the inventor
had any idea of just what he had invented,
and what his reaction would have been
had he been able to see what was ultimate-
ly achieved by the humble magnetic relay.
Question: I wonder what simple device
W6
Early telegraph relay
From History, Theory and Pradice oi the Electric
Telegraph,by George B. Preswtt, prbished 1864
there is today that will make a similar
impact on the world in future years?
Gerald Stancey G3MCK
Staines, Middlesex
(MM footnote: The invention of the
magnetic relay, around 1835, has been
variously attributed to Joseph Henry,
Samuel F B. Morse, and others. We hope
to discuss these claims in a future issue
of MM and would welcome serious
contributions on the subject. Ed.) -
Morse Music
MM readers may remember the German
synthesiser group Kraftwerk who were
famous in the 1970s for their records Auto-
bahn and Radioactivity. In the latter, the
spoken/sung English/Gennan text alter-
nates throughout most of the record with
the same text in Morse. This is hand-sent
at about 12 wpm on synthesiser, some-
times distorted but quite readable.
AnotherMorse song was C Qserenade,
37
 which included CQ in Morse. This was
originally from Canada or the US and was
featured in an early issue of Dutch MM.
Monika Pouw-Arnold PA3FBF
Mijdrecht, Holland
(CQ-Serenade will be reprinted in a
later issue of MM. Can readers provide
other examples of Morse music as distinct
from the media-CW we have been featur-
ing recently? Ed.)
Double-ended Key
The photograph from Maurice Small
(MM25, p.40) stirred memories of distant
school days. Philip Harris were, and still
are, manufacturersof scientic equipment,
especially for use in education, and the
name and the photograph made me
wonder if it is a Morse key at all.
I have memories of doing an
experiment with a magnetometer a
large coil in the vertical plane surrounding
a horizontal compass needle in which
we used something very like the instru
ment in the photograph to reverse the
current ow in the coil. The positive
supply was to the centre connection and
moving the key one way or the other
allowed for current reversal.
Ron Wilson G4NZU, Nottingham
When I was a schoolboy in the nineteen-
forties every piece of equipment in the
science laboratories carried the name
Philip Harris. It stuck in my mind espe-
cially because of the popularity at the
time of the jazz singer Phil Harris.
The equipment was all very chunky
and Edwardian-looking, and included
a great range of electrical gear; coils,
compass-needles, galvos, and switches of
all kinds. I would suggest that the double-
38
ended key is part of such kit, probably
used for reversing polarity through a coil
to demonstrate Mr Faradays laws.
Graeme Wonnald G3GGL
Bewdley, Worcestershire
I recently saw an item in an Oxford an-
tiques arcade very similar to thatdescribed
by John Gilbert in MM24 (p.44). This was
made by Muirhead and appears to be a
special type of switch. One end contact is
marked CONDENSER and the other
GALVO. However, as the item was also
marked 45.00, I did not pursue this!
Dennis Goacher G3LLX
S windon, Wilts
Keys like those illustrated in MM24 (p.44)
and MM25 (p.40) were not Morse keys
at all, but general-purpose testing keys.
To give just one example, the test set at
a terminal station might incorporate such
a key for locating an open-circuit fault
on a submarine telegraph cable. (Leakage
faults could be found by resistance
measurements using Wheatstone bridge
methods, but these were unsuitable for an
open circuit into which no continuous test
current could ow).
Depressing the key one way would
charge the cable from a DC battery.
Pressing it the other way would discharge
the same cable througha ballistic galvano-
meter. By comparing results with a
similar test made on a standard precision
capacitor, the capacitance to the break was
calculated.
Knowing the capacitance-permile of
that type of cable would allow the repair
ship to be sent to the correct bit of ocean.
Routine fall-opotential tests of the
insulation resistance of good cables
W6
would sometimes employ the same type
of key, and there were many non-
submarine applications in electrical
laboratories circa 18801910.
John Packer GJNRD,
Hon. Curator,
Porthcurno Telegraph Museum
Thank you for your letter about a
double-ended key mentioned in Morsum
Magmcat magazine. This item has been
a part of our range of science education
equipment for a great many years and,
whilst no longer made, was available
until 1989.
It was not a Morse key as such,
although it could no doubt be used as one
if desired. It was actually designed to
provide the rapid change-over switching
action required for certain types of
laboratory experiment, panicularly those
involving capacitors, ballistic galvano-
meters, etc., hence its ofcial title Charge
and Discharge Key'.
(Reply received by the Reverend
Duncan Leak GORJT, after writing to
Philip Harris Education to clari exactly
what their double ended key (MM25,
p.40) was usedfor. )
Other Applications for Morse Code
From an engineer who repairs computer
hard disc drives, I learned recently that
some drive failures are signalled to the
outside world by ashing the panel LED
in very slow Morse. Head position
selector failing, for example, is D. There
are other codes, but he would not reveal
these. (Does anyone know the other codes?
Ed.)
Dennis Goacher G3LLX
S windon, Wilts
W6
I use a Tektmnix 2710 spectrum analyser,
having a range between lkHz and
LSGHz, for measurements in TV and
radio networks.
Surprisingly, this instrument, full of
micmprocessorsand high technology, also
uses Morse code!
During the rst ten seconds after
power-up it sends QRX (stand by) at
about 18 wpm, and it also sends all is
well in Morse after initialisingprocedure.
HenriJacob F6GTC
Hoenher'm, France
2099an
I recently read a book by a retired Air
Chief Marshal which describes a novel
form of signalling used by the RAF on the
North West Frontier of India in the period
193436.
Aircraft then had open cockpits and
there was no air-to-air R/l". The only
way of passing non-standard messages
between aircraft ying in company was
by zogging,a method of sending Morse
code visually.
The two aircraft ew side-by-side, a
short distance apart, and the pilot with
a message to pass put his arm over the
side of the cockpit A long downward
sweep with the st closed indicated a
dash, and a short downward sweep from
the elbow, a dot.
I joined the RAF as an Aircraft
Apprentice in 1937 but I had never heard
of this system before.It died out as aircraft
speeds increased and R/I was introduced.
Was it unofcial? Was it conned to the
North West Frontier? Can any readers
throw some light on the subject?
The book was Never Stop the Engine
when its Hot, by David Lee, published
39
1983 by Thomas Harmswotth Publishing,
ISBN 0 9506012 41.
RA. Parrot: G3HAL
Chard, Somerset
Left-handed?
I think that Horace Martin, inventor of
the Vibroplex was a left-handed operator
and the Vibroplexas sold is the wrong key
for right-handedoperators!
The thumb of the right hand makes the
dits but it has a slowerreex which should
be making the dahs. If we use the key left-
handed the thumb will be ne for the dahs
and the much quicker index nger will be
better commanding the dits.
Gaspard Lizee VEZZK
Laprairie, Quebec, Canada
(What do other Vibroplexusers think
of proposition? - Ed.)
this
Morsum Is Best!
According Bruce Norman, in his fasci-
to
nating book Secret Warfare, Morse code
is not really a code at all but a substitution
cipher with dots and dashes replacing let-
ters. He explains that a code operates on
complete words or phrases and a cipher
works on single letters.
I think Ill stick to Morse CODE.
After all it IS named after the great
man, and in any case CIPHERUM
MAGNIFICATwouldnt get the message
over quite as well!
Roy Harry 60EWC, Bristol
Early Sounder
My sounder, featured on the front cover
of MMZO, is very probably of the type
rst used in Londons Central Telegraph
Ofce. An article in The Illustrated
London News, November 1874, shows
40
various types of instrument in use at that
time including an American sounder
which looks very similar to mine. The
number, 1444, is probably an internal
GPO serial number.
I found the sounder about 10 years
ago in an antique shop in St Albans. It
was in a terrible state and I had to
completely dismantle it. I cleaned and
lacquered it and the only part that had to
be replaced was the spring.
Ian Gurton GOCPN
Harpenden, Harts
G.W. Man Alive and Well!
After reading Larry Robinsons review
in MMIO (p.44) and Bill Youngs
remarks in MMll (p.40), I became
determined to own a G.W. key. Since
then I have advertised in MM and else-
where without success.
After some detective work, I nally
managed to trace John Wilkes, the
G.W. man. He has moved twice since he
left the original Rhyl address. In 1988
he suffered some ill-health and decided to
get out of the rat-race and take a breather.
He has, however, been making keys for
government agencies and certain compa-
nies on a regular basis.
When I met John recently, he con-
rmed that he would make keys to order
for anyone. He still makes the original
G.W. key and another one based on the
Swedish Navy key. Both are made of
brass on Welsh slate bases.
I am now the owner of both keys
and am over the moon with my purchases.
I totally agree with Larry Robinsons
review of the original key. The new
model is also a pleasure to use. My only
criticism is that it is a bit noisy in use
M1126
even though John tted a plastic bush
under the front contact.
For anyone interested, these keys
can be obtained from John Wilkes, 10
Vicarage Lane, Rhuddlan, Clwyd, North
Wales LL18 2UE. Tel: 0745 590167.
The Original G.W. Key is 34.50
including post and packing (UK only,
overseas extra), and the New G.W. Key
is the same price.
Wyn Davies
Brymbo, Clwyd, Wales
Key with Spark Gap
I used the type of key illustrated on page
24 of MMZS to instruct fellow cadets at
Christs College, Finchley, in 194042. It
wasknowntomeasa P&O keyandl
remember it well for having a particularly
soft feel.
Tony Timme GJCWW
Linthwaite, Huddersfield
I think we had one of these keys in the
Morse room at the old Liverpool Wireless
College, and it was called a Siemens
Key there. But I also think a London rm
(Electradix?) sold them pre-war as ex-
Air Ministrykeys.
My gut feeling is that they were made
for the A.M., probably for airship use,
perhaps originally by the RNAS and then,
after 1 April 1918, by the same people,
now RAF.
Unfortunately,I cannot document this.
As an aside, they MIGHT be of French
origin as the RNAS bought a lot of
lightweight French spark sets which
were used on the eastcoast ying boats
and perhaps also on the airships.
Gus Taylor G8PG
Greasby, Merseyside
ill/[9W6
More Natural Breaks
Regarding Q-codes for natural breaks
(MM25, p.45), perhaps QKF (may I be
relieved?) could also be used?
Dennis Goacher GJLLX
S windon, Wilts
Other suitable natural breaks are QAR
(You may cease keeping watch for
minutes in order to ...), and QUG (I am
forced to alight) both used in conjunction
with QAU.
John Short G3BEX
Seer Green
BuckinghamShire
In the RAF in Iraq (194446), we used
QHU I am water-bome to announce a
natmaltxeak.Asfaraslcanrecall,QHU
2 MINS was usually sent.
I did once receive QHU sent authenti-
cally, from a Sunderland ying boat which
was alighting on the nearby lake, when I
was operating the approach control chan-
nel of No. 40 Staging Post, RAF Trans-
port Command, at Habbaniya, some 55
miles from Baghdad.
I thoroughly enjoy reading MM. Keep
em coming!
Alan Johnson GOKCJ
Tankerton, Kent
Several readers have written to say that
QKA has been allocated (see Natural
Break', MM25, p.45).
It is listed in ACP.13I(A) as 'l have
effected rescue and am proceeding to
base (with persons requiring ambu-
lance).
It was also apparently used for
'Authentication of this message or
transmission is (Air & Army).
41
 An Early Starter
My son Michael, aged 7, likes to listen to
me sending CW on the air. One day he
said are you talking to G4PEP?, a local
amateur. He had recognised the sound of
G4PEP in Morse,
From there, we just picked a word
from the newspaper and I asked him to
learn it in Morse for the following day.
My daughter joined in so it became a
family project with a test at the end of
the week rewarded with a Mars Bar!
When we are out in the street, the name
of the game is Say in Morse the registra-
tion number of the car in front of us, the
street name, the shop sign, and so on. We
nd this is a good way to prevent travel
sickness and journeys pass more quickly.
Michael and Shelley
Isend Morse at 12 wpm to Michael
because thats the speed he is most
comfortable with. He likes to use the
electronic keyer but he has a nice touch
with the straight key. Morse is the one
thing he can do better than his big sister
Shelley, who won a Post Ofce Post
Early for Christmas poster design
competition and was both regional and
national over-all winner.
42
Apart from Morse, Michael likes
watchingThunderbirds,and Nigel Mansell
on TV; playing snooker and racing his
remote-control car and hovercraft. Im
hoping he will keep up his interest in
Morse, however, and take the exam
before his 8th birthday in March 1993.
Mike Hindley G4VHM
Hull
(We would like to hear about other
early starters', and how they learned the
code. Ed.)
Abbrevlatlons and Procedures
I can understand Philip Scrivens (MM24,
p.32) not liking my comment in MM22
(p.33) on the unimportance of the
precise meaning of IMI barred. What I
meant was that when the symbol follows
a word or a phrase, or is used by itself,
either interpretation will lead to the same
action.
I did include I am repeating that as
another usage, although I think 11 is
more generally recognised for separating
two sendings of the same word or phrase.
In the absence of an internationally
agreed operational practice for Amateurs,
I refer to the ITU Maritime Mobile
Manual. This includes extracts from the
Instructionsfor the Operation of the Inter-
national Public Telegram Service, which
in turn cites CCI'IT RecommendationF. 1.
Division B of Part C of the manual
deals with the Morse code. In this - --- - -
is identied as Question mark (note of
interrogation or request for repetition of
a transmission not understood).' There is
no mention of a meaning I say again'.
There are several symbols in this
ofcial ITU version of the code that are
unfamiliar to Amateurs, and we dont
DWI/[26
have to learn them. There is no reason
why we should not adopt some symbols
of our own devising, but it would seem
unwise to adopt symbols that are actually
in contravention of the ITU code. It is
one thing to use an unfamiliar word or
symbol, but it leads to confusion if we use
an existing one in an unfamiliar way.
Philip Scrivens comment about AR
barred is interesting. The ITU code shows
it to mean cross or addition sign. In the
RAF in 1940 we were taught it meant end
of transmission and should be written as
a cross. In Amateur operation there is not
much need for this symbol but there is
no alternative at the end of a broadcast
bulletin or statement with no subsequent
invitation to transmit.
Bob Eldridge VE7BS
Pembenon, BC, Canada
Regarding the difculties experienced by
Philip Scrivens(MM24, p.32), when I was
an operator at Scheveningen Radio/PCH
in the 50s I sent - - - - (it is) before the
repetition of a word and that was never
misunderstood.
Ing. J.P. Lagerberg PA 0 you are leaving the frequency.
Velserbmek, Holland
Philip Scrivens article took my mind back
half a century to No. 1 Radio School at
Cranwell, where we were always taught
that IMI stood for I Missed It, and was a
request for a repeat it never had any
other meaning!
Douglas Byrne G3KPO
Ryde, Isle of Wight
In reply to Philip Scrivens comments
(MM24, p.32), may I add my own experi-
ences? I had no formal training in CW
lm/[26
operating and learned Morse from my
father, for fun, when l was about 14.
Eleven years later I took the Morse
test and RAE, teaching myself from avail-
able books. I therefore had no bias or pre-
conceived ideas about amateurprocedure.
My understanding is that - -
used
-- - -
means "2, and can be as what was
that? (repeat please) or in ur QTH?
(please repeat your QTH). I cannot see
any reason to suggest it means I am
repeating' and, thankfully, l have never
yet come across anyone using it in this
context
Philips mention of II, meaning I
say again, is what I remember of the
advised use, but on the air I usually just
repeat with a pause if conditions really
demand it.
AR barred means + (over), usually sent
before callsigns on each over except the
nal.
VA barred means good-bye (end of
work). usually sent before callsigns on
the nal over.
CL means off and clear (closing down),
usually sent after callsigns to announce
CT barred means commencing trafc.
This is used by Morse tutors and exam-
iners and by some newly licensedstations
until they discover the more gentlemanly
habit of calling QRL? long pause
QRL? pause CQCQCQ de
One of my early QSOs included a
reply so lid copy and I seriously
thought he was trying to wind me up as
the textbooks clearly state a lid is a bad
operator. I realised my mistake later and
then thought why didnt he just send
R which would have been clear and
unambiguous.
43
 agree entirely with Philip about the
I so little mention of an abbreviation now
possible confusionbetween rpt and rpn
and suggest the best way to request a
repeat of name is to simply send name?.
KNbarredisheardontheairasisKN
unbarred. It took me a long time to realise
that the former is also open brackets.
Some operators make a point of sending
KN unbarred with a distinct pause to
emphasise that they do not mean open
brackets.
I do feel there is a danger in attempt-
ing to put rules down which are too strict
for the amateur service. We have many
different ideas which have come from the
services and other Morse professions, all
of which contribute to what actually goes
on in the amateur bands. The balance ap-
pears to me to be just about right at present
Robert Coleman G4RJC
Upminster, Essex
I refer to the list of abbreviations for the
UK Novice licence, as published in MM25,
p.3. I have the advantage of being very
new and green to everything so that I am
easily puzzled by things most others take
for granted. My point may be trivial but I
make it for the record.
One of the ofcial abbreviations is
EL. This would be self-evident in context
(SEL YAGI, etc.) but out of context I did
not recognise it and found to my surprise
that it was not in my cumulative notes.
It does not occur in 11 separate publi-
cations I have checked relating to Morse
operating, including four from the RSGB.
I eventually tracked it down in Morse
Code, The Essential Language, by L.
Peter Carton Jr., W3DKV, published by
ARRL.
It is an unexpectedshortcoming to nd
44
needed for the Novice examination.
Reverend Duncan Leak GORJT
Tittensor, Staffordshire
(Apartfrom Pete Carron's book (re-
viewed in MMZI, p.7). references to EL
are includedin Amateur Radio Q & A. by
the late F.C. Judd GZBCX, published by
NewnesTechnicalBooks in 1980 and in a
list published by the Brazilian magazine
Antenna-EletronicaPopular in 1984.
Moving to more modern publications,
it now appears in current information
issued about the Amateur Licence by the
UK RadiocommwticationsAgency. and in
the operating data section of the 1993
RSGB Call Book.
I must admit that I, too, had to think
twice when [first saw the abbreviation in
material for MM. I had the impression
that ELE was more commonly used, but
looking back through old QSL cards, I
found that the two are about equally
favoured. Ed.)
May I put right a widely held (and
erroneous) belief. K and N at the end of
a transmission are not barred; they are
quite separate. K is, of course, an invita-
tion to transmit.The N is added to inform
other stations that the invitation applies
only to the station being contacted and
that calls from others will not be wel-
come.
KN barred means brackets on (used
in conjunction with K
of
barred: brackets
off). Verication this can be found in
the Handbook for Radio Operators, Ap
pendix 1 ~ International Morse Code Sig-
nals, issued by HM Stationery Ofce.
PA3FBFs use of C (yes) (MMZS,
p.39) is good procedure, but probably not
W6
understood by many; in which case I would
suggest that the answer to QRL? is
QRL.
Jeijerey VK6AJ
South Perth, Western Australia
(Lists of CW operating abbreviations
published by the RSGB and the ARRL both
maintain that the KN sent at the end of a
transmission is barred'. As it is the last
thing sent at the end of over, it really
ought not to cause confusion.
When I was at sea in the 1950s, left-
hand and right-hand brackets were both
KK barred, causing problems if you were
handling a telegram containing 'nested'
brackets. The 1968 Edition of the Hand-
book for Radio Operatorsspecies the new
system. - Ed.)
CW Ethuette
With reference to Gerald Stanceys letter
(MM24. p.43), I remember a QSO I had
with a station somewhere in the east of
Russia that I hadnt worked before. He
called CQ at over 35 wpm while I, with a
tennis elbow, could not use higher than 20
wpm without making mistakes.
I answered his CQ and he gave me his
name and QTH once. I answered him with
my low speed and repeated his QTH. He
said OK tnx fr Q80 and -----
Later on I received his QSL card. I
think thats one way of having a contact
despite the difference in speed.
Ing. J.P. Lagerberg PA 0.
Velserbroek, Holland
More Media CW
In answer to ClaudePasset (MMZ4, p.43),
as from I992, Danmarks Radio now
commence their news-broadcasts with a
synthesised tone spelling out DRNA in
W6
CW, at a speed of approximately 80
characters per minute.
I believe this means DanmarksRadio
Nyheds Afdelingen' or, in English,
DenmarkRadio News Department.
Thanks for an always interesting
magazine.
Jens H. Nohns 021 CAR
Bording, Denmark
In Sweden CW is used before each news
programme on our third radio channel,
Sveriges Radio, (SR is sent). We also have
a weekly show programmecalled Pa HAret,
where PA is sent.
Peter Moutnemery SM7CMY
Trellebotg, Sweden
The French TV station M6 closes its
6 Minutes transmission at 19542000
and 00000006 GMT by sending 'M6
in Morse.
HenriJacob F6GTC
Hoertlreim, France
No doubt many readers of MM will
remember the opening frames of the lms
produced by RKO Radio Pictures Inc.,
which showed lightning ashes emanat-
ing from the top of a tall lattice radio
tower standing on top of a revolvingglobe.
Synchronised with the ashes, VVV
RADIO PICTURES VVV could be heard
spelled out in Morse at about 25 wpm.
Many years ago, too, the American
radio newscaster and journalist Walter
Winchell used to preface his FLASH
items with a rapid series of Vs sent on a
bug-key. I think the station was WNEW
in New York.
LeonardMoss G4VXJ
Birchington, Kent
45
 Isle of nghl
I noted John St. Legers difculty (Mb/124,
p.47) in nding evidence of Marconis
stay on the Isle of Wight in the late 18905.
Presumably, at that time, the local people
took little notice of what they considered
was just a rich young man playing with a
new{angled toy which could be of no I have recently been preparing a talk
use to anybody! Had they but known...
One amusing story, well authenticated,
was when Queen Victoria wished to keep
in touch with her son, later King Edward,
who was sailing his yacht in the Solent
quite a short distance from her home at
Osborne House, Cowes.
It was suggested that Marconi be
asked (or commanded!) to set up a wire-
less station at Osborne House and on the
yacht, so that messages could be passed
between the two, and this worked quite
well until Marconi quite unintentionally
blotted his copybook.
He was walking through the grounds
when he met the Queen and, meaning to
be polite, doffed his hat and said Good
moming your Majesty, isnt it a lovely
day for a walk? The Queen was furious,
as nobody ever spoke to her rst all
he should have done was to have bowed
deeply.
Dismiss that young man immediate-
ly she commanded of her aide, who com-
mented, But that is Marconi, the inventor
of the wireless. The Queens retort was
quite denite. Well get another electri-
cian.
It took some little time to convince her
that just another electrician would not t
the bill, and in any case young Marconi
was quite innocent as he was not English
and therefore could not possibly know the
correct etiquette when meeting royalty.
46
The story ends that Her Majesty
forgave Marconi and invited him to tea
with her a great honour!
Douglas Byrne G3KPO
Ryde, Isle of Wight
Coherer Puzzle
on early radio for a local club and have
come across a puzzle with regard to the
coherer.
The earliest work I can locate is that
of Prof. Onesti in 1884, yet Prof. David
Hughes used the principle in his micro-
phonic detector in his experiments of
1879, some 8 years before Hertzs classic
demonstration.
So where did Hughes get his ideas for
his detector? Can any readers throw light
on this puzzle please?
Ron Wilson G4NZU
Nottingham
Porthcumo Telegraph Museum
This museum is situated at the Cable &
Wireless College in the old tunnels which
housed a submarine telegraph station
in WWII. It is not open to the general
public but readers of MM may visit by
appointment.
However, in mid-1993 the College
moves to Westwood Heath Business
Park, Coventry, to new buildings which
will incorporate a purpose-built telegraph
museum. This too will be open to
interested visitors by appointment from
about October 1993 onwards.
I also have a small private collection
that I would be pleased to show any
MM readers who may holiday in West
Cornwall (phone Penzance (0736) 67088).
This includes telegraphtest sets, induction
W6
and medical coils, eld telephones from
both world wars, and WWII wireless,
amateur radio station, antique keys,
sounders, meters, etc.
John Packer G3NRD, Hon. Curator
Porthcumo Telegraph Museum
C & W Telecommunications College
Porthcumo, Cornwall TR19 61X
Tel: (0736) 810477
Lamp Slgnalllng, Daylight
A number of readers have sent informa-
tion about the Lamp SignallingDaylight
Short Range, featured in Showcase,
MM25, p.25. This information is being
kept on le for the present, pending
preparation of a feature on various aspects
of light signalling.
Further contributions will be welcome.
especially extracts or copies from manu-
als, photographs or drawings, previously
published articles, operating procedures,
details of applications and personal
experiences. If you can help, please write
to Tony Smith, 1 Tash Place, London
N11 IPA, England.
CW/Moblle Safety
I feel very strongly about safety when
operating CW/Mobile and believe that
both hands should be on the driving
wheel to ensure full control of the vehicle.
Also, the operator should concentrate on
the road ahead and not turn to speak
to passengers, or ddle with something
below the dashboard, while driving.
I have done a lot of CW operating
when mobile and have had many queries
about operating on the move. My rig is a
Ten-Tec Delta so there is no problem
using QSK (break-in) for control. Over
the years I have experimented with the
ma
key position on the driving seat, on the
door alongside the driving seat, etc.
The best solution is to have the
paddle key on the driving wheel and
connected to the keyer by a exible
screened lead, using a stereo jack/socket
arrangement, with the lead routed via the
front (drivers) side of the wheel in order
not to snag the wheel when turning sharp
comers. This enables two hands to be on
the wheel when driving, and the keyer and
paddle can be jerked apart if necessary.
My paddle is mountedon a small block
of wood, with foam glued to the base of
the wood, and an elastic strap around the
rim of the steering wheel holds the assem-
bly in position.
The ideal solution would be a paddle
with a two-tone ultrasound output, one
for dashes and one for dots, attached to
the steering wheel. The outputs would
operate a keyer interface circuit, via an
ultrasonic microphone, thus eliminating
the wiring between paddle and keyer. If
anyone could produce such an arrange-
ment I would be pleased to test it for them.
For safety, one should send QRX
when in trafc, or on a roundabout, when
concentration on driving is required - the
other operator should understand and
stand by for you. It is helpful in the UK
that there is no requirement to log call-
signs when /M, only the start and nish
times, locations, and the bands used
during the journey.
Incidentally, like John Rehak (MM25,
p.21), I too have a CMOS Super Keyer II
which I have modied with an extra
switch to disable the four memory buttons
as I also found that they operated, and
attened the battery, when I carried the
keyer in a box with other items. This
47
keyer is too simple for words to construct.
For, say, 40 you have a programmable
memory keyer comparable, if not superi-
or, to units sold for over three times the
price!
Neil Little GW3YVN, Caerfli, Wales
(We would be pleased to hear from
other CW/M operators on the matters
raised here, or on any other aspect of
-
CW/M operation. Ed.)
Changes In the Code
I earned my rst Amateur licence in 1936
when I was 16 years old. In those days
the Morse for period was - - - -
a comma was ;and the
exclamation mark was changed because commercial printers
I married in 1942, went to war and
when I returned did not resume activity
in amateur radio.
Three years ago I decided to get back
CLUB PROFILE 7 - above, the club has two attractive full-
HIspanla CW Club (HCC)
continued tram page 36
News & Awards
CW news bulletins are transmitted
on 7.028MHz, in Spanish, at 14 wpm, on
the rst and third Sundays of the month,
except the holiday months of July and
August when they are on the third Sunday
only.
There is a 24-hour recorded telephone
information service on (93) 226.88.27.
The main source of information for this
service is the RSGB DX news sheet and
the RSGBs own recorded service. The
club also publishes a Circular Sheet
(newsletter) three or four times a year.
Apart from the limited 2CSM (Sec-
ond Centenary Morse) award mentioned
48
on the air, and to my surprise I found the
code had changed. The period was now
; the comma had become
; and there was no longer
a symbol for the exclamation mark.
My question is, when were those
changes made, by what organisation, and
why? Once in a great while I hear some
old guy like myself use the old symbol for
the period like a voice from the past!
Bob Hammond N7YXC
Edmonds, WA, USA
(The symbols were changed at the
Cairo International Radio Convention
(ITU) 1938, and became eective on the
I September 1939. The period was
produced it as 111. The exclamation
mark was abandoned because it was not
used commercially - except for personal
-
exchanges between operators. Ed).
colour Spanish Painters awards, SPA/G
and SPA/M, which are available to all
amateurs, whether HCC members or
not. The SPA/G certicate carries a
reproduction of Guemica by Picasso,
and SPA/M carries a reproduction of La
Maja Desnuda by Goya.
Membership Information
The annual membership fee for all
members, Spanish or foreign, is 2000 Ptas.
Enquiries about HCC or its awards,
and applications for membership,.should
be sent to Jero Orellana R., EA3DOS,
Av. Roma 10, NC, 2a, 08015 Barcelona,
Spain. MM
(Our thanks to EA3DOS for assist-
ance in preparing this prole.)
W6
 /[orse Q55
A safes of reprowcaons o! OSL
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mrds win: a Morse theme

Morse Q3
Samuct Nurse
119 199

vm:
TO: Hot-W1 Mm!
TNX OSL
41
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